The Second Amendment lets Americans own guns. The First Amendment lets us talk about how dangerous they are. Don't let the NRA shout down the national conversation about the extraordinary danger to children and families of guns in the home.

As we have seen with other issues like drunk driving and tobacco, humor can be an important, if not essential tool to call attention to the most serious of issues, and there are few issues as serious as unsafe access to guns in the home.

You've no doubt heard that this doesn't happen in countries like Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada where the gun rules are strict and lives are saved. But here the cycle of death, denial, resistance and madness goes on.

This isn't a gun issue. It's a responsibility issue. Thousands of tragedies, in homes across our country, could be prevented if parents and others had more responsible attitudes and behaviors about the real risks of guns in the home.

When James Carville said ,"It's the economy, stupid," it wasn't meant to insult anyone. It was to emphasize a point that should be obvious, but had instead been obscured by over-complication. We need to apply that same sense of pragmatism to the national conversation about guns.

The "Faces of Courage" campaign is focused on honoring gun violence victims and their families -- and taking action so fewer mothers who are celebrating Mother's Day this weekend will be mourning their own children next year and in years to come.

It is truly incredible to see women everywhere -- mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, aunts and daughters -- speaking up and speak out. We will never forget Newtown. We will never "get over" Newtown. And we have really long attention spans. Are you listening, Congress?

It is time for opponents of gun control to stop mindlessly shouting "The Second Amendment!!" as if that ends the discussion. It does not. Just as there is no First Amendment right to falsely yell fire in a crowded theatre, there is no Second Amendment right to carry an AK-47 there.

My recent post on gun control generated more than 1,500 comments. At least 80 percent of them were from people who oppose gun control. The rest, as a group, made five arguments that deserve a response.

The evidence is clear -- the more guns are out there, the more likely they will be used to take a life. To cut these escalating death rates, we need to strictly restrict access to handguns, as they do in virtually every other advanced nation on earth.